Scarfing Business

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Friday January 23, 2009

Scarfing business

For a large part of Susan Beausang's career, a business life that included being one of the first women to own a seat on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, she rarely, if ever, lacked confidence.

Her confidence, however, was zapped the day in September 2002 when she was told she had Alopecia, an autoimmune skin disease that causes hair loss on the scalp and elsewhere. "It's not a life threatening disease," says Beausang, who moved to Sarasota from Philadelphia with her husband in 2003. "It's a disease of emotions."

Beausang, who counts several relatives as breast cancer survivors, was intimately familiar with the emotional impact a woman can feel upon losing her hair. It was those experiences, in conjunction with her own hair loss, that prompted her to find her inner entrepreneur.

She did it by creating the BeauBeau scarf, a fashionconscious wig alternative that's a perfect fit for women and girls coping with hair loss. The company she founded, www.4women.com, sells the scarves over the Internet and in about 75 boutiques in the U.S. and Canada, including one inside the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa.

The company has two employees in addition to Beuasang, working out of a small office near downtown Sarasota. The BeuaBeaus retail for about $60 each and sales were in the low to mid six-figure range in 2008, Beausang says.

"This was a 100% selflearned business," says Beausang, whose only previous experience in fashion came when she majored in fashion merchandising in college 40 years ago. "I knew nothing about fabrics. I knew nothing about manufacturing."

Beausang spent months researching the look and feel of the scarf. She found wigs uncomfortable and hot, so she was looking for something cool and easy. She settled on using a variety of silks, designed with an empowering color scheme and design base. The Beau-Beaus catalog includes about 70 options, with names such as Amazing Grace, Color Me Happy and Make Me Smile.

After coming up with the design, look and feel, Beuasang's next big challenge was to find a manufacturer and a fabric supplier. For that, Beausang relied on her inability to take no for answer, skills she learned in the late 1970s and early 1980s when she was a broker and later a specialist on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. It was a total 'boys club' mentality on the floor, Beausang says, where she had to learn how to assert herself.

The experience paid off when trying to find a fabric supplier that could meet two goals for any clothing company - quality and cost. Beausang wrote 40 letters to just about every scarf material supplier in New York City, until she found one that met both goals. She utilized a similar don't-take-no approach in finding a manufacturer, searching nationally before finding a good fit in Bradenton.

But while Beausang aims to use her marketing, merchandising and all-around business background to grow the business, her ultimate goal is already being met on a daily basis. That's when she writes or talks to the 30 or so people from across the world that tell her how important the Beau- Beaus have been to their lives.

"This experience has given new meaning to my life," says Beausang says. "At the end of the day, there is truly no substitute for knowing you made a difference in someone's life."

- Mark Gordon

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